


Lifting Burdens, Lifting Wings

by serendipityxxi



Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode Related, Episode Tag, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-11
Updated: 2012-02-11
Packaged: 2017-10-30 23:40:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/337486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipityxxi/pseuds/serendipityxxi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a few moments she said quietly, “that’s the first time you’ve called me that.”</p><p>“What are you talking about, Bones? It’s your name. I’ve called you that before,” he protested.</p><p>“Since the surgery,” she clarified. “The first time since the surgery. You woke up and it was Bren, Bren, Bren. Since I’ve been back you’ve called me nothing but Bones...” she fell silent, feeling awkward. He was quiet too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lifting Burdens, Lifting Wings

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This guy Hart Hanson? He owns them. Me? I just play in his sandbox. Don't sue!
> 
> Note: Takes place during 5x01 after Brennan is stabbed.

Temperance Brennan was cold, so very cold. The chill felt like it had permeated right down to her bones, the hyperbole felt very apt at the moment. The hospital had treated her for blood loss, stitched up the stab wound in her arm, given her pain pills she was staunchly refusing to take and released her into Booth’s care. Booth himself was hovering in a most annoying fashion and if her teeth wouldn’t stop chattering there’d be no getting rid of him. He hurried around to her side of the SUV before her strangely clumsy fingers could get the seatbelt undone.

She batted his hands away.

“I can do it, Booth,” she grumbled reminding him of a cranky Parker.

Booth backed away, shoulders hunched together. She lurched out of the front seat of the SUV and began the slow, laborious journey towards her building. Brennan wasn’t good at reading people or deciphering their motives but Seeley Booth was a language she was slowly learning to understand. He felt guilty about her wound. She could tell that because he was Booth and that was what he did. But she really didn’t have the control in her at the moment to let him take care of her like he wanted to. She relied on him too much already. So she gave into the surly mood and brushed off his attempts to help her out of the car. What she really needed to do was get to her apartment and get under several blankets with the heat on high.

Booth followed a half step behind, not crowding her, but there if she needed him like always. She didn’t want to need him. She couldn’t stop the shiver that overtook her near the doorway, the late August breeze heralding the nearness of fall with its crispness. It didn’t help that her left jacket sleeve hung off her arm at the elbow. The prints of Booth’s fingers could be seen clearly around her slim forearm where he’d put pressure on the stab wound. Those purplish marks were proof of how scared Booth had been, how much he cared. And she hated that. She didn’t know how to be the person who deserved that kind of caring. No, she was the kind who left her partner three days after a coma to run away to Guatemala. She hated herself for her cowardice. Angela’s psychic was wrong. She didn’t save lives. She only stepped in when the pressure was off, she returned the identities of the unnamed dead but that wouldn’t stop them from being dead.

Brennan fumbled in her pockets for her key but Booth was already there, sliding his pass card into the slot. She flashed him a dirty look but slipped inside the blessedly warm building without comment. She managed the elevator button on her own and stumbled only once on the trip to her door when they got off. Her apartment was dark and cool when Booth once again opened the door. Brennan went around turning on all the lights in her living room, as well as the heat. Booth shed his jacket while she did this and stood watching her from the entrance.

“Why don’t you go take a hot shower, Bones?” he suggested. “You need to eat before you take these pills. I’ll make you something while you do that.”

She wanted to protest, and send him on his way but the familiar stubborn set of his jaw told her that would be a pointless argument. So she trudged off to her bathroom, emerging fifteen minutes later in sweats with her hair curling around her face from the steam of the shower. She’d felt much better when she was in the shower but the instant she shut off the water the shivering had started again. She dropped into a corner of the couch, curled her legs under her and drew the throw off the back of it around her shoulders.

Booth set a plate with half a grilled cheese sandwich in front of her and placed a steaming mug of tomato soup in her hands. The cup shook in her grip and Booth snatched it back. “Jesus Bones, you’re shivering!” he exclaimed.

Brennan rolled her eyes and reached for the mug. “I’m fine, Booth.” She took a defiant sip while Booth kept a protective hand hovering around the base of the cup. 

When the mug was drained and her shivers hadn’t abated he got up. Booth had had enough of sitting idly by. He set the cup down and marched into her bedroom, returning with her comforter which he dumped on the carpet at her feet. He sat beside her on the couch and pulled her bodily into his lap, wrapping the comforter around the both of them and then his arms around her squirming form.

“Booth, this caveman attitude...” she began to lecture.

“Blood loss Bones,” he cut her off, “as we both heard at the hospital can lower your core body temperature, as can shock. Shared body heat is the most effective way to raise someone’s body temperature.” He informed her in what he clearly thought was an affectation of her lecturing voice. “You can argue with me about caveman techniques all you like but you’re going to do it from right here,” he grumbled right in her ear.

She could feel his voice reverberating in his chest. And she did feel warmer though she was loathe to admit it. The comforter was just heavy enough, and Booth’s arms were strong and warm. Truly he felt like a furnace under her icy fingers, his hot breath stirring the hair over her temple when he exhaled.

“I’m fine. I can take care of myself, Booth,” she groused, trying to detangle herself from his arms and the blankets but Booth would have none of it. He kept his arms wrapped firmly around her waist, wedging himself into the corner of the couch. His right leg slipped under both of hers, hooking around her ankles and pulled them onto the cushions.

“I know you can Bones, but let me do this for you, okay? Let me help you,” he murmured in her ear. “I want to, Temperance.”

Brennan grew still after that, letting her head rest on his shoulder. Booth settled the covers more comfortably around them.

After a few moments she said quietly, “that’s the first time you’ve called me that.”

“What are you talking about, Bones? It’s your name. I’ve called you that before,” he protested.

“Since the surgery,” she clarified. “The first time since the surgery. You woke up and it was Bren, Bren, Bren. Since I’ve been back you’ve called me nothing but Bones...” she fell silent, feeling awkward. He was quiet too.

“I know who you are, Temperance,” he finally said.

She nodded absently, tracing idle patterns on his shirt.

He put his fingers under her chin and raised her gaze to his. “I know who you are, Temperance,” he repeated, stressing the syllables. His voice was intense, like he was trying to tell her something without saying it outright...

Brennan’s eyes filled with sudden tears as she realized he understood. She blinked frantically to clear them away but he had seen them. One escaped to course down her cheek until it met Booth’s thumb.

“When... when you woke up and you asked who I was... That... I..." She stumbled over her explanation, growing more and more frustrated when she couldn't articulate what she was trying to say. Finally she blurted out, "usually you do. You just know me without me having to explain myself. Not even Angela...I need you to know who I am, Booth. If you don’t know then who does?” she whispered, another tear joining the first.

“I know who you are, Bones,” he promised, voice rough with emotion. He leaned down and kissed her forehead tenderly. “I always knew who you were,” he swore against her skin. “I just didn’t know who we were to each other,” he added regretfully.

“We’re partners,” she said simply, but even she could see the hurt that crossed his face at her words though he looked away quickly.

“Booth?” She reached up and touched his cheek.

He took a breath and tightened his arms around her feeling the echo of the dream in his reality now: her legs thrown over his, her body a warm weight against his chest. Her hair smelled of something exotic and sweet, sandalwood or patchouli or something. He couldn’t remember what Bren’s hair smelled like. Maybe he never knew because dreams didn’t have scents. Wasn’t it better to have the truth? To have her real and safe and alive in his arms instead of some fantasy that disappeared when he woke up?

“Yeah Bones,” he cleared his throat, “we’re partners.” He gave her the ghost of his charm smile and she suddenly found herself flinging her arms around his neck.

“Thank you for coming for me tonight,” she whispered, her words came in puffs against his skin, her chilled fingers digging into his back.

He tightened his arms around her waist. “Avalon told me you needed me,” he confessed, feeling silly but compelled to tell her.

“Booth-” she began but he cut her off.

“No, Bones. She knew something was wrong.”

“Perhaps she subconsciously worked out that the doctor was responsible for poisoning her sister and the others in their group and she surmised-”

“She guessed you’d go there and find him shredding the evidence?” Booth broke in gently.

Temperance pulled back to glare at him, stymied for the moment as to how to explain the supposed psychic's ability.

Booth took advantage of her silence. “Avalon, she wasn’t wrong about you saving my life either. I heard your words in that coma, Bones. They kept me holding on.”

“No. I didn’t save your life, Booth. I don’t save lives, Avalon was wrong! I left! As soon as I could, I ran.”

“Bones, Bones, Bones,” he crooned, rocking her gently. “No, hey, you stayed when it counted, Temperance.”

Brennan shook her head tightly, her eyes closed to prevent more tears from escaping. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “For running away when you needed me. I just..." 

“Hey,” he cut her off. “Look at me,” he waited until she opened her eyes. He felt a weight in his chest released at her words. The resentment of six weeks without his partner that he’d kept buried under the front of being glad for the space to get his head on straight was lifted. Another all new burden of guilt formed as he realized how much she’d been hurting too in that time.

“Bones, you were there when I needed you. You cared enough to sit with me for three days when no one knew if I would survive. That took guts, Bones. You were scared afterward and yeah you ran, but you came back. I know who you are. You’re Doctor Temperance Brennan. You don’t let your fears own you. You fight them like you fight everything else. You might have run, but you came back, Bones and that’s good because I could really use my partner lately,” he watched her eyes as he found her again with his words. He felt those words cementing something in him, a new found resolve to have that dream. She wasn’t ready yet but he could wait, he could be patient. The words tripping off his tongue revealed who she was to him but he knew who he was to her now, she’d written him an entire novel about what he meant to her.

Finally she nodded. “I will try to be the partner you deserve, Booth,” she promised her voice heavy with emotion. She leaned up and her lips against his cheek were gentle, light, like the brush of wings.

She settled back against him then, a soft, warm weight against his chest. His arms rested loosely around her, one hand cupping her hip the other on her knee. He laid his head against the crown of hers and they sat in silence for long moments.

Brennan was the first to break it. “I’m not cold anymore, Booth,” she said but he could hear the reluctance in her voice.

“No, you’re not cold, Bones,” he agreed, hoping she understood he didn’t just mean physically. “But I could use somebody to hold on to for a little while yet.”

Brennan nodded. “Me too,” she whispered shyly. She snaked her good arm around him and rested her forehead in the crook between his neck and shoulder. Their legs tangled together under the blankets and Brennan fell asleep with the comforting weight of Booth’s arms around her back.


End file.
